Pro-Tinkering Speech from White House Cybersecurity Czar

Richard Clarke, the White House cybersecurity czar, in a speech today at the Black Hat conference, called for legal protection for tinkering by security researchers.

According to an Associated Press article by D. Ian Hopper, Clarke “encouraged the nation’s top computer security professionals and hackers Wednesday to try to break computer programs, but said they might need protection from the legal wrath of software makers.” The article also quotes Clarke as saying that security researchers “have an obligation to find the vulnerabilities.”

This is just common sense. Still, it’s refreshing to hear that somebody in official Washington understands the value of tinkering and open debate about technology.

Freedom to Tinker is hosted by Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, a research center that studies digital technologies in public life. Here you'll find comment and analysis from the digital frontier, written by the Center's faculty, students, and friends.